


The Rise of the Fallen

by Slone13



Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Blood, Camp Half-Blood, Camp Jupiter, Camp Norse (Danes), Minor-character death, Torture, a lot of OC characters - Freeform, crossover i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-07-18 09:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7310401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slone13/pseuds/Slone13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Okay, look," Jo said, "just because we kind of, maybe, killed a couple of Greek demigods, doesn't mean that they're gonna start a war with us."</p>
<p>Vincent held a dubious look of dismay, a single brow raised. "Do you honestly think I'm going to believe that?"</p>
<p>"Yes. Completely."</p>
<p>"Well, I don't." He propped his hands behind him, leaning back on his bed. "What you and Clausen committed was a serious offense against our agreements with the treaty. This is a literal act of war, do you not understand that?"</p>
<p>Jo felt the hairs on her arms prickle anxiously. "No, uh, I understand--"</p>
<p>"Then why the hell did you kill those two kids and bring this one here?" Vincent raised his voice. It resonated off of his bedroom walls and made an irate ringing in Jo's ears.</p>
<p>Johnson snarled and spat a wad of bloody saliva on the wooden floor of Vincent's room. "Screw you," he said brusquely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mount Katahdin

**Jo Burnham and Eric Clausen stood** above the tree line at the edge of the tablelands. The area around them was rich with alpine communities and contained a variety of shrubs. Further up the flatland behind them, lichen-growing rocks dotted the plain. They'd pitched their tents on the flat and level ground just on the other side of Baxter Peak, where a small overhang looked over the west end of the surrounding lake. They weren't in walking distance to any drinking water and all their natural windbreaks were at least eight hundred feet below them, but they were prepared for their scouting exhibition.

Jo was crouched beside Eric. They were dressed for the bitter weather -- they wore black, long-sleeved compression shirts and windbreakers under thermal Carhartt jackets with dark gray hiking pants that they could detach at the knee to convert to shorts. They both wore waterproof hiking boots, scuffed from use and muddied from the trek through the wet paved portaging trails.

Numerous pillars of smoke from the surrounding campgrounds billowed up against the darkening sky, torn by the ragged opaque lobes that clumped together in a field of mammatus clouds. The foregrounds that surrounded the lake below were empty and in shadow. The mood seemed wistful and elegiac. The sight from where Jo and Eric stood was an inviting one, yet it seemed as though, between the current time of daylight and darkness, that the air was holding its breath. It was something to endure at a great distance away.

The two of them looked out over the scenery below them. It was mostly covered by the low vegetation. Eric looked through a pair of night-vision binoculars, his cockpit sunglasses perched on top of his head. They were golden-framed, the lenses rose-tinted and expensive. Jo didn't know why he'd brought them. He was just going to lose them again, but she supposed  _ again _ stressed his vocabulary of wealth.

"What do you see?" she asked him, playing with the fine hair on the back of her neck, twirling the short strands around her finger. "Are there any  _ afturganga _ or  _ hamingja _ ?"

Eric's eyebrows were pinched together, either in concentration or because he wasn't satisfied with what he was or wasn't seeing. "No," he said, raising the pitch of his voice slightly. "I see families making s'mores, stargazers, and a... a circle of nudists doing, playing, smoking? I dunno." He took the binoculars away from his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his other hand and exhaled a heavy sigh. "Jo."

"Yo!" Jo stood up so fast, she heard her knee joints pop the same time the goggles that hung around her neck smacked her in the face. She held out her arms to balance herself.

Eric wore a smug grin. "Nice."

"Ugh..." Jo used her sleeve to scrub at her face. "So no monsters, no suspicions. What are we going to do now? George isn't going to like our no-info report."

Eric brought the binoculars back up to his eyes. "I didn't say anything about  _ no suspicions _ . Look at this."

Jo took his binoculars and looked through the eyepieces. The night-vision turned the darkness a green-scale depiction of high definition. Eric directed her gaze where he wanted her to look. What she saw were three people sitting around what she presumed was a bonfire, but because the canopy of the surrounding trees were blocking most of her view of them, Jo couldn't get a very good look.

She gave the binoculars back to Eric. "They're only kids," she said. "What of it?"

"You can't really see it with the night-vision, but they're burning green fire." Eric put away the binoculars in the pocket of his jacket. "You know what that means, right?" He gave Jo a side glance.

Jo furrowed her eyebrows. "Greek fire. Greek demigods. Look, if they've got that shit, it's gonna burn like a bitch. We should bring incendiaries." Eric arched a brow and Jo shrugged. "It's just a thought."

"Maybe," Eric said and looked over at the shadowed greenery below them, a small prominent green glow just off by the lake's shore. "How do we want to do this? It's not like we can just walk down there and into their camp."

Jo pulled her goggles over her head and strapped them back on, adjusting the strap so the cushions around the lenses fitted comfortably around her eyes. The mesh of the night was colored in rich molds of oranges and yellows, acting as an improvised night-vision of sorts.

The night was a brutal chill. Every breath was seen at every convenient sigh. When Jo retreated to hike up the tableland towards their campsite, Eric followed suit and repeated his question in a more demanding inquire.

"How do we want to do this, Jo?"

"We're on orders from George, so we'll do what anyone would do with xenophobia." Jo side-stepped between two boulders.

Eric made a disapproving noise in the back of his throat. "I know what you're doing," he said, "and the answer is no. We aren't just going to murder a few kids so you can get a closer look at that Greek fire. Besides, what would  _ George _ think when he saw that we brought back something of Grecian heritage."

"Okay, well, first of all,  _ Eric _ , Greek fire was manufactured and used by the Byzantines, which was part of the Eastern.  _ Roman _ . Empire. It never began with the Greeks, but they  _ were _ the first to record its existence."

Eric made a sharp exhale, a sneer at best, and grabbed the back of Jo's jacket collar to force her to stop. "So you're going to steal something that the  _ Romans _ created when you know, as well as  _ I _ do and rest of camp, that it's going to cause a huge fuss between the Greeks, the Romans, and  _ us _ ?"

Jo snorted a laugh. "You're kidding, right? Stealing something like that isn't going to do any harm to anyone."

" _ Stealing _ won't be the problem, but I know you. You aren't planning to leaving them unscathed.  _ That _ would do a lot of harm to everyone."

"Says who?"

"Says the treaty Ull and Ótr had to sign and the demands we had --  _ have _ , might I add -- to assent to."

Eric and Jo exchanged daggered stares, their gazes never wavering. That was, until Jo shouldered Eric's hand off of her shoulder and turned around. Their pitched tents were just in sight. The fire they'd smothered out was no longer smoldering.

Jo walked to the closest tent on her right and unzipped the entry flap. Inside was a make-shift bed, a sleeping bag spread out across a waterproof ground mat with a pillow to match. There wasn't much but rugged carpeting made out of numerous blankets and an unzipped backpack with most of its contents strewn about on top of the sleeping bag. A quiver and bow were on the ground by the pillow, the arrows lined together neatly nearby. Jo saw the bow and ducked in to grab it.

Eric stood hunched at the tent's entry. "This is a bad idea."

Jo slung the quiver's strap across her chest. "Then why aren't you stopping me?" The fletching of the arrows stuck out of the quiver, the bow's grip clutched in the palm of her hand. "Look, I'll be back in two shakes and a quiver. It'll give you time to let off some steam."

"Gross," Eric deadpanned.

Jo shrugged and shouldered back Eric. She teetered her head left and right with the palm of her hand, hearing those satisfying pops. "This is going to be  _ so _ good," she crooned to herself. 

She took the trail back down towards the tablelands and made forth, trekking down the steep slope towards the forest below, and then finally to the krummholz-formed white pines by the lake's tree line of its beachy shore.


	2. This Is Bullshit

**“Hey, dipshit, got any red threes?”** Johnson asked, his seven cards splayed out in his hands.

Anthony furrowed their eyebrows, pursing their lips. “John, there’re hearts and diamonds, and they’re both red. Which one is it?”

“Hearts.”

“Go-fish.”

“Bullshit!” Johnson folded his cards into a small stack and gestured wildly with a free hand. “Threes have to be the most basic fucking card in the whole fucking deck. I call bullshit that you don’t have any.”

“If we’re calling  _ bullshit _ ,” Mira said, looking down tentatively at her own hand of cards, “then we’re playing the wrong game. John, take a card from the deck. It’s my turn.”

Johnson flayed his cards and took one from the main pile. It was a three of hearts, and he slapped that sucker down hard with his other matching suits. Anthony rolled their eyes. Mira looked up from her cards to choose someone to pick. She chose Johnson.

“John, do you have any aces?”

Johnson begrudgingly slipped his ace of spades from his hand and gave it to Mira.

“Thank you,” she said and set out three aces she’d managed to keep.

Anthony whistled. “Seven pairs. Mira, you’re a pro.”

“It’s all about memorizing what cards each player has. Anthony, it’s your turn.”

“Oh, right.” They looked down at what cards they had and contemplated whether to ask Mira or Johnson. Mira had the least amount of cards in her hand, so Anthony chose Johnson to ask. “So, uh, John—”

“Great.”

“—do you have any kings?”

“This is fucking bullshit.” Johnson handed Anthony his king of clubs.

Anthony took the card and paired it up with their king of hearts, settling it on the ground by their feet. “Sorry,” they said, but there was no sympathy.

Johnson made a  _ tsk  _ noise with his tongue. “Yeah, you’ll be sorry once I—” 

Mira raised an eyebrow, a grin working its way to her lips. “Once you do  _ what _ , John?”

But Johnson wasn’t listening. He’d interrupted himself by stopping mid-sentence to peer up into the darkness around them. The green flames of the bonfire casted an illusion of pitch blackness outside of light’s glow. Their tents were in view, so were the starting trees by the shore, but they bled black the further you looked. The three of them could hear near to everything around them, but seeing what they heard was a completely different matter.

Johnson started to stand up, what cards he had left slipping out of his hand and cascading to the ground.

“What’s wrong?” Anthony asked.

Mira flung her cards somewhere behind her, just about done with whatever Johnson was pulling. “He’s probably faking it, trying to scare us.” She gave him a pointed look. “It isn’t working,  _ dipshit _ .”

“Will you two shut the fuck up?”

“Hey!” Mira exclaimed. “Look, I don’t know what’s got you so pissed off, but telling us to  _ shut the fuck up  _ isn’t solving anything. What’s got you so riled up?”

“I thought I heard something.” Johnson looked out into the blackness beyond the bonfire’s virescent luminance, seeing nothing but the forest and the dark.

Anthony bit at the chapped skin of their bottom lip. “We’re by Millinocket Camp. You might have heard some group screwing around.”

“Look, Tony,” Johnson said, “I know what I heard. It was a snap, like a twig or something. If it was a group of shit-wads, then I wouldn’t be so concerned, but it  _ was _ n’t.”

A sort of  _ twing  _ was heard and something whizzed past the left side of Johnson’s head, right by his eye. He saw it, even if it was for a second. And he  _ felt  _ it. It was long and narrow, the head glinted in the light of the fire. What he felt were the fletching ends that gave him a double cut on his cheek. He could feel the blood running down the side of his face. When Johnson glanced behind him, an arrow was embedded into the sand a few feet away.

Mira and Anthony stood up.

Johnson signed something with his hands.

_ Under. Attack. _

The three of them made a break for their tents.

Mira nearly crashed into her tent, having had been too anxious and too scared to remember that she’d zipped up the flap before joining her companions at a game of Go-Fish. So she improvised and scrambled to get behind her tent, kicking up clouds of sand and just about face-planted when her right arm gave out for a second.

There was another  _ twing _ , but this time, whoever had notched the first arrow had more luck with the second one. Mira heard the scream before she could make sense of who it belonged to. It was a short yell, all throat and broken, a heavy inhale towards the end. The rest followed with cooing sobs. 

Mira could see Johnson’s silhouette within his tent. He was crouched near the opening, his sword in hand, reading to pounce out and attack the intruder. The hurt cries were still heard, and Johnson didn’t look close to being critically injured in any way, and so Mira felt something sick churn in the pit of her stomach when she realized who’d been shot. 

Anthony laid sprawled out on the ground, the upper half of their body inside their tent and lower half sticking out to nature. Tears blurred their vision, pooling at the tip of their nose and chin, and dripping onto their hands. They’d been shot through the side of their thigh and they couldn’t concentrate on anything more than the pain they felt.

“Tony!” Johnson called out. “Tony, can you move?”

His voice didn’t have that biting tone it usually held, and Anthony was completely grateful for that, but they didn’t think they’d be able to comply to his query. 

“I, um… I don’t—Matt, I can’t.” Fresh tears welled up in Anthony’s eyes. “I can’t move.” 

Johnson’s heart just about shattered. “What do you mean you  _ can’t move _ ?” He didn’t mean to sound brash in any way, but this was a desperate situation he wasn’t sure he could handle.

Anthony gritted their teeth. “What the hell more do you  _ want _ ? I. Can’t. Move.”

“Fuck.”

Johnson had an idea of where the arrows were coming from. He needed one more arrow to accommodate for his surmise, and without anyone dying tonight. He supposed that if Mira could create some sort of illusion to distract the shooter, then he’d have enough time to get Anthony out of harm’s way, or at least before they bled to death.

“Mira!” Johnson yelled. He knew she was somewhere near. He’d seen her sprint to her tent.

A second later Mira snapped, “What?” She sounded distressed.

“I need something, like an alteration. Can you do that?”

There was a pause. Mira didn’t respond.

“Can you do that?” he repeated.

No response.

“Mira, what the  _ fuck _ ?”

Johnson exhaled sharply and exited his tent with long, hesitant strides. Each step strained the muscles in his thighs, but he managed. It wasn’t as bad as what Anthony had received. The butt end of the arrow’s shaft stuck out from the outer part of their left thigh, a glistening patch of red spreading from the wound onto their jeans. Blood dripped from the other side and pooled beneath their leg, soaking the rest of their pants.

Anthony wasn’t moving, not their limbs at least, but their chest slowly rose and fell. 

There was a lot of blood.

“Mira,” Johnson said. He said her name as a reassurance to himself, that she was just playing some sick version of the silent game. 

That sick version of the silent game happened to be an arrow through the head.

Johnson found Mira, just as where he thought she was. She was behind her tent, having scrambled there because her tent’s flap was zipped closed. She was lying down against the back of the tent, so it tilted forward slightly, her shoulders hunched up, her head lolled forward. If it weren’t for the arrowhead sticking out of her forehead or the blood that trailed down the front of her face, Johnson would have assumed that she was asleep.

Johnson’s first thought was of ambrosia and nectar, but that was in vain. The food and drink of the gods wouldn’ be saving any lives tonight.

There was no need to inspect Mira’s body, so Johnson walked back to where the green flames of the bonfire crackled without mercy. On the other side of the fire stood a figure, illuminated in a ghostly pastel of green. He couldn’t see their eyes behind the goggles they wore. But what he did see was a quiver slung over their shoulder, a bow in their hand.

Johnson was livid.

He pointed the end of his sword towards them. “Who  _ the fuck _ do you think you are?”

They tilted their head innocently.

“Answer me!” He gestured around him wildly. He wanted them to see what they’d done, how much pain and death they’d caused. But he was pretty sure they already knew.

They gave a wicked smile, and in a blameless voice, said, “I’m the fuck who murdered your friends.” There was a cross feeling to the fact that  _ they  _ was one girl. One girl with an ugly attitude. 

“Ah, gross.”

From his peripheral view, Johnson saw movement between Mira and Anthony’s tent. When he glanced towards it, someone was standing beside Anthony. It was a boy. Well,  _ boy  _ being an understatement. He was a  _ teenage  _ boy at best, with one boot lifted up, as if examining it, his mouth screwed up in a disgusting manner. He’d stepped in a small pool of Anthony’s blood that had begun to pool in a small crevice of sand.

“If you’re going to do something like this, at _least_ choose a more less revolting way of handling it.” When he walked towards the girl, he left clotted, bloody shoeprints. “ _Swina bqllr_! It’s going to take me hours to get this muck off.”

Johnson was fed up.

“That  _ muck _ ,” he said, “is my friend’s blood, and you’re dragging your shit-stained boots all over it. Have some respect.”

He eyed Johnson, then puckered his lips and spat on Anthony.

And then he was moving towards him, slow and amble-like. Johnson gripped his sword’s handle with white knuckles and set his left foot behind him, but before he could move a muscle in his arm, the girl had her bow up, the string taut with an arrow notched in place, the head’s point directed at him.

“You saw what I could do,” the girl said, her voice calm and loud against the surrounding night. “I suggest you lay down your weapon and we can all be civil here.”

Johnson narrowed his eyes. “Like hell I’m doing that.”

She pursed her lips and she and the other guy exchanged a quick look before lowering her bow slightly and letting go of the arrow. It pierced Johnson’s upper arm, the one that held his sword. He dropped it from the sudden pain and let his arm go limp.

The next thing he knew the boy was in front of him, his arm drawn back, his hand balled into a tight fist. With one swift and powerful motion, he sideswiped Johnson’s jaw, causing his head to snap to the side. He fell hard and didn’t get back up.


	3. A matrix of Fate

**Eric shook his left hand out,** his knuckles pink from impact. He entwined his fingers together and braced the topmost part of his palms towards him, popping the joints. At his feet was the unconscious body of the Greek demigod he'd just knocked out. John had been his name, or at least that was what his companions called him. The name Matt had also been used, but Eric assumed that knowing what his name really was didn't matter. It shouldn't have mattered.

He looked over to Jo. Her goggles hung around her neck as she was inspecting the Greek fire, passing her hand through the flames. Soot marked her palm when she was done playing with it. She showed Eric.

"No smoke," she said, "but it leaves soot marks? Eric, we _need_ this.”

Eric felt tired. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then at his eyes. "I know. Yeah. Let's just--let's just get these bodies moved. I don't want them to be found with our prints on them."

"Burn them."

"What?"

"Burn them," Jo repeated. "Heat kills germs and all that nasty shit. It'll get rid of all that DNA crap that the authorities won't be able to scrape up because we _burnt_ them."

Eric narrowed his eyes and didn't say anything. He knew, on some degree, that Jo was right. She hadn't used gloves when shooting those arrows. He hadn't wiped the blood off of his boots when stepping in that kid's blood. They were sloppy. They needed a faster way to dispose of the bodies, and the only source they had to _burn_ with was the Greek fire of the bonfire.

"Huhhh..."

Eric's head snapped over to the tent on his far right, the one where the kid he'd stepped around, who had only managed to scramble themselves halfway in their tent. They were alive. At least enough to rasp out a hoarse breath.

He was about to tell this to Jo, that she'd slipped up and he'd finally have bragging rights about her shitty archery skills, but any gloating was caught in his throat when he saw her stalk towards the wheezing kid. She walked over to them and knelt by their head. From the inside of her left boot, she pulled out a black Benchmade knife.

"Anthony, right?" Jo crooned. With the hand that was free and didn't wield the knife, she caressed their cheek with the back of her hand. It was so tender and forgiving, Eric couldn't stop himself from staring.

When Anthony slowly turned their face over, their nose pressing against the knuckles of Jo's hand, they made a sort of gurgling sigh.

"I know, Anthony. But look at this--" She held up the knife to their face, twisting it in her grasp. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't aim properly." She pressed the cutting edge against their cheek and traced down along their jaw, the tip scratching their neck and over their throat, right to the collar. "But you can't move, and I'm a little glad you can't right now."

Eric didn't look away. He watched as Jo gripped the handle of the knife and, with agonizing patience, stuck the blade through Anthony's jugular. He heard the gurgled chokes, the wet sobs, until there was only silence.

But Jo didn't stop. She held up the knife and brought it down. She did it again. And again. And again.

Eric grabbed her wrist before she could carve another laceration in Anthony's neck or face.

"Alright, psycho," he said. "Let's not overdo ourselves." He squeezed her wrist, tight enough to curl her fingers, and pressed his thumb in the space between her thumb and forefinger.

"Hey!" Jo jerked her hand away, dropping the knife onto Anthony's chest. She scrambled to stand up quickly.

Eric took the knife and wiped the blade off on the sleeve of his jacket. Not all the blood was off, but he handed it back to Jo handle-first as the blade-end weighted in his palm. Jo accepted it and placed it back into the hidden sheath that was fixed on the inside of her boot.

Eric massaged his right temple. "Help me get the bodies in the fire. I'll make sure the other one doesn't wake up for a while. And get your arrows. You know they don't burn."

Jo was already one step ahead as he braced one hand on Anthony's thigh, the other grasping onto the arrow's shaft, and yanked. Blood sprayed on her pants. She didn't seem to care.

"One down, two more to go."

"Break the one in the third one's arm. I don't want him dying of blood loss."

Jo gave a mock salute with two fingers as she walked around the middle tent to where Mira was. "Aye aye, sir."

Eric looked over to where Johnson was unconscious on the ground by the bonfire. Behind him, he could hear the squelch and tear as Jo pulled out the arrow she'd lodged through Mira's head. Eric didn't want to think about it, and instead knelt beside Johnson. A bruise had started to form where his fist has made contact with his jaw, and the two cuts where Jo's arrow had spliced him had already dried blood scabbing over them. Eric wanted to apologize, but he supposed that had expired long before.

He broke the arrow in Johnson's arm himself.

Jo came back, dragging Mira with her.

The two of them tossed the dead into the bonfire, Mira first and then Anthony, and watched as the green flames coiled around them, cradling them until their faces were unrecognizable and their skin charred black. Eric murmured a pagan blessing, wishing them a safe journey to Valhalla, despite their Greek descent.

Eric stripped his jacket off and threw it into the fire.

Jo stared at the burning bodies. "Walsh is going to kill us."

"That's an understatement," he said, and leaned back to pop his back. He exhaled sharply when he did so. "George might not care, but we have Vincent to deal with, and I do _not_ want to get on his bad side."

"I think it's all for show. He's just using his father as an excuse to scare us."

"But the fact is that he _is_ his father. I mean, we've had campers who were Loki's children before, but they've never amounted to what Vincent's been able to do."

"And it's even worse knowing that him and George are related." Jo sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Thor's children have always led us, and it's completely unfair that the only child of Thor we have is related to one of Loki's kids. And not, like, related by marriage either. Real blood relation. _Cousins_ . It _disgusts_ me."

Eric picked at the skin around his fingernails. "You probably should have thought of that before agreeing to be an _óskmey_ ," he said. Jo whirled on him and opened her mouth to say something, but he beat her to the punch. "The sun's going to come up soon and we have to get to Brooklin before sunrise. We'll just leave our stuff and go straight to camp."

"Whatever."

"We'll probably send Alma and Ramos to get it for us in the morning."

"Fine."

Eric and Jo worked separately to accommodate for their time. Jo rummaged through the demigods’ backpacks, and found at least several plastic, flat-bottomed vials rolled together in a hand towel. They were filled with halfway with a murky liquid substance, the color a dull jade. There were numerous flecks within them, like pine needles or grass blades.

“No way,” she whispered.

Jo rewrapped what she took out and left the tent she was in.

“Yo, Clausen,” she called. “Look what I found.”

Eric had his arms stretched above his head, his mouth open mid-yawn. Jo hurried up to him and shoved the folded up hand towel against his chest. He quickly held it when she let go.

“The hell, Jo?”

“It’s it!” she exclaimed cheerfully.

Eric furrowed his eyebrows. “It?”

“ _It_. The fire. The _Greek fire_!”

“Oh, that’s nice.” He handed the towel back to Jo. “Good job, I, uh, guess.”

“Thank you!” she sung and took it back.

“Look, put that away and help me with this guy. I won’t be the only one dragging his ass back to our camp.”

“Fine.”

Jo unrolled the hand towel. She was careful wrapping the vials up again, tighter, and shoved the towel to the bottom of her quiver, where she knew it wouldn’t fall out. She and Eric hooked each of Johnson’s arms around their necks and held him up by securing their hold around his torso. From there on out, they trekked back into the forest and up the slope towards the tabletops where they’d set up camp.

By the time they arrived, the sky had begun to take on a more formidable discoloration, dusky and disquieting, the trees’ silhouettes a mottled stain to the naked eye. Jo and Eric laid Johnson down beside their firepit. Eric retreated into his tent and reemerged with a leather drawstring sack. He poured its contents out, onto the dead cinders, and produced a small silver coin from his front pocket. Jo watched as he flicked it into the pile and as it sunk itself underneath.

“Raven ashes?” She asked.

Eric grunted out an agreeing response.

“Would it happen to be Vincent’s ashes?”

Eric grunted out a negative response.

“Damn.” Jo sounded disappointed.

Eric cleared his throat. “So, uh… yeah. Ullr or, you know, Ótr. Whoever answers first, I guess.” The pile didn’t move. “Right, well, I have some news. Burnham and I scouted out the area, so everything’s fine around here. Um…” He fiddled with his fingers, twisting them and picking at the dry skin. “We also have a predicament with a few, erm, _Greeks_ we ran into. They’re fine. They’re _out_. We’re simply asking for a shortcut back to camp. Please. Sir.”

Eric held his breath and then slowly, silently, exhaled through his mouth. Jo, who sat with her legs crossed beside him, had her hands cupped over her nose and mouth, her eyes trained on the pile of ashes.

“You were very brave,” she whispered.

“Thank you,” he whispered back.

And then something happened. The ashes encircled themselves, like a bask of stirred water, dusting up specks of ash and other burnt debris. Tendrils of it twisted and braided together, knotting into something complicated and exhaustive, into a face that Eric and Jo recognized immediately.

Ótr was known for having a very asymmetrical face. With what his lips lacked in plumpness, his nose made up with its bulbous rotund. His forehead was large and wrinkled, his cheeks saggy. His voice was low and gravely when he spoke, but it resonated at such a high frequency that Eric and Jo’s ears rung.

“Mista’ Clausen. Mis’ Burn’em,” Ótr said. He looked at both of them when addressing their names. “I heard yer message. I’ve also been told o’ what yeh’ve done, an’ from the prerequisite of yer search, I presume yeh’ve found the needed supplies.”

“Yes,” Jo piped up. “We’ve got the stuff.”

“Good.” And then Ótr’s hallow eyes flickered to something just beyond Eric and Jo’s gaze. “I see we’ll be havin’ a surprise guest.”

Eric felt flustered, but composed himself. “Right. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“All in due time.”

“Right…” Eric self-consciously rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t know why he was being so gauche now.

“As for yeh ‘shortcut back to camp,’ I’ll be sendin’ Aquino an’ Lindgren to assist yer arrival back. Be sure to explain yer’selves to’em. I have a zero tolerance fer any miscommunications.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Burn’em.” Jo perked her head up. “I wan’ yeh to come see Ullr an’ me right ‘way when yeh arrive.”

“Yessir.”

Ótr sighed. The ash churned, as if he’d actually blown on it. “I’ll leave our guest’s fate up to Vincent once he arrives. I don’t want anything more to happen to ‘im. He’s in a rough ‘nough state as it is. Bring ‘im to the ‘firmary once yeh’ve come.”

“Yessir.”

“That is all.”

And then Ótr’s face began to cinder and burn, flecking away until there was no trace of him or the ashes anymore. In its place was a sketchy image seared into the ashy debris of the fire pit. It was a sort of emblem, where there were nine staves that were arranged in an angular grid. When Eric motioned for Jo and they got a closer look at it, they realized it contained all of the shapes of the runes of the Nordic alphabet. Ótr was a clever dwarf when giving warnings.

As dawn began to break, Eric and Jo packed up their belongings and unpitched their tents. They hid everything within a hollowed out log, partially rotted with moss and reishi mushrooms. Eric wore his sunglasses and Jo had fashioned her goggles so they perched on top of her head. They waited with the two boulders on the tablelands, their guest resting in the shade of one of them.

Eric had been as considerate as possible and drawn a four-cornered shield knot on Johnson’s forehead with a permanent black marker. The symbol held his consciousness within him, at least until Eric decided to break it and wake him up. The advantage was that it kept the one it was being used on completely comatose. The only disadvantages were that, whoever it was used on had to already be unconscious and that whoever used it was the only one who could uplift it.

“Eric,” Jo said, and pointed down towards the forest. “Look.”

Between the human-sized crevice of the twin boulders, down where the ground dipped just enough to elude that of the forest’s edge, was a metal chariot. Attached to it by their reins were two horses Eric and Jo knew very well. One was Falhófnir, a large brown and white blotched Irish Cob that had its silver mane braided in hunter braids with a french braided forelock. His name derived to his creation. The other one was something different. Glenr was a sight to behold, and unlike Falhófnir, it wasn’t alive, but it looked vital. Glenr was a glass menagerie of its kind, otherworldly and with a tragic beauty. It was a haven from reality because it wasn’t flesh and bone, but crafted of glass and _galdr_ , its heart an amber glow.

“Well, _hey_ , you two!”

The voice came from behind them, and when Eric and Jo turned around, there were two girls standing up the slope. They descended, arms linked and hands hidden in their coat pockets. They dressed casual and seemed to shiver against the spring’s bitter cold.

Jo and Eric were relieved. Their ride had finally come.


	4. An Itch to Scratch

**Chiron had not known the dangers** of their neighbors up north prior to admitting three campers to travel to the next few states above for a recent issue that had arose. Tensions were very high between the Danes and the Greeks ever since Camp Half-Blood amalgamated itself with Camp Jupiter. Chiron had received numerous reports of Nordic activity along Long Island Sound, and it devastated him to see the two familiar faces he wished, for their sake, to never see again.

Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson sat with Chiron in the lawn chairs that furnished the deck of the Big House. They sat around a table, drinks by them already half empty. While Annabeth and Chiron engaged in light conversation about recent camp activities and about the clamber of new campers who'd came within the last four months of Gaea's defeat, Percy was indulging himself in a steak burrito he'd bought at a Mexican joint that Annabeth and he had visited on their way from his place. He ate it with both hands, taking gluttonous bites out of it, the foil wrapping spread out as a makeshift plate.

"I apologize for inviting the two of you so suddenly," Chiron said, as Annabeth and his conversation dulled down to a casual prattle of sorts, "but it seems as though we have a very serious predicament on our hands here at camp."

Annabeth arched an eyebrow. "What sort of predicament?"

"No, wait." Percy put down his burrito, his mouth full. He looked away for a moment to chew and swallow, and then looked back. "Look, Chiron, you're the best." Chiron seemed pleasantly taken aback at that. "Number one teacher here. But before we go divin' into his predicament, I wanna know if the Olympians are involved in any of this."

Annabeth looked at her boyfriend with poignant realization. Of course he'd be asking whether or not the gods would be involved. She knew better than to allow his fidelity towards camp resolve itself into something desperate. He had the majority of senior year to make up, so his omitted time had to be used to some value, and getting involved in another dilemma couldn't be on his agenda this year.

Chiron ducked his head and gave a light chuckle. "You are in luck," he said, and clearly sounded relieved by his own words. "They have no desire to stand where they are not welcome."

Percy made an O.K. gesture with his hand and then picked up his burrito. "Good'nough to hear," he said, before taking a bite.

Annabeth looked at Chiron and narrowed her eyes questionably. "What do you mean by that?" she asked. And then her eyes lit up. "Are you suggesting that there might be other  _ gods _ involved?"

"Of the sort, yes." But Chiron was clearly distraught by this. "The two of you recall the incident at the Minisceongo Creek in Haverstraw, yes?"

Annabeth said, "Of course," the same time as Percy muffled out a, "No."

"Well," Chiron said. "A few months ago, just weeks after Gaea was put back to sleep, two campers were attacked by, what Mister D and I presume was, a pack of hellhounds. When Jason Grace was here, before his departure to Camp Jupiter, he, Nico di Angelo and Will Solace took it upon themselves to search for them when they hadn't arrived back at camp after a couple of days."

"Holy Hera," Percy said. "Did they find them? They weren't, like, dead or anything, right?"

Chiron's silence held the formidable truth. Percy's appetite hit rock bottom. He placed the uneaten half of his burrito back down, with no intention of eating the rest of it any time soon.

"Unfortunately," Annabeth said, carrying on Chiron's telling, "their bodies were never found. Nico said that he couldn't get a reading on whether they were still alive or not, and Jason had flown all around West Haverstraw  _ and _ Haverstraw to see if he could spot them, but he never did."

"Gods," Percy murmured. "My condolences."

"Although their bodies were never found," Chiron continued, "their banners were still burnt at the hearth in respect of their alleged deaths. However, to get the point across bluntly, those two demigods' deaths were no accident."

"Well, I mean, of course not." Percy took a sip of his glass of cherry Cola to quench his dry throat. "Those hellhounds probably caught their scent. Were they new campers?"

"They hadn't even stayed at camp for more than four days." Chiron looked Percy dead in the eye, his tired gaze unwavering. "But Percy, this was no twist of fate, despite it being a gruesome one. Here."

Percy watched as Chiron retrieved something from inside his jacket. What it was, was a polaroid photograph. It depicted three black crescents that were interlocked together to form a sort of radial symmetry and two, three interlocked triangles beneath it. The symbols had been carved into the side of a tree. Percy could see the creek in the background.

"These were found in the location of where they were," Chiron said.

Annabeth leaned forward to get a good look at it, her shoulder brushing with Percy's. "I've seen this before," she said and pointed to the topmost symbol. "It's a triskele. Usually it's supposed to be spirals, but this one looks like it could be... well,  _ any _ thing; moons, claws, bows, horns."

"They're cups, actually."

The screen door of the Big House opened. The three of them turned to see a short-statured young man step out and walk towards them. He stood at Chiron's side, his hands in the pocket of his sweater. He had tousled black hair that was parted to the side and eyes that were mismatched, with one being green and the other amber, and his skin a burnish of beige.

"Euth," Chiron said in acknowledgement, then looked to Percy and Annabeth. "May I introduce to you, Euth Agrios. He has been looking after the general myth and language tutoring."

Percy quirked an eyebrow at Annabeth. "Didn't that used to be what you did?" he asked.

Annabeth gave a bashful shrug. "Yeah," she said, and then looked up at Euth. "Thanks for taking over. It's been a really big help while Percy and I are catching up on our senior year."

"No big deal," he assured her.

And then, within the time it took to blink, the prattling was over. Euth got right down to business, something he was no stranger for. He gestured at the photo with a cock of his chin.

"The symbol you were talking about before," he said, "they're cups. Or, well, they're cups made out of  _ horns _ . According to Norse mythology, the three horns represented the three draughts of mead that the god, Odin, drank."

"And the two below it?" Chiron asked.

"Oh, that's easy." He rocked on the balls of his feet. "Those are borromean triangles, or valknuts. They're mostly found on stone carvings as funerary motifs for the afterlife. If you look at it, there're three triangles, and they suggest the three realms: earth, hel -- with one l, because they're lazy -- and the heavens. And then the points on each triangle represent the nine domains that the three realms encompass."

Annabeth furrowed her eyebrows and looked at Euth, looking bemused. "How do you know all of this?" Her expression softened into something more sly. "Are you some child of Athena or something?"

"No, actually. My dad's Thanatos, but I'm a mythology fanatic, so there's that."

Chiron took the photograph and turned it around so he could look at it. "I was afraid this would happen." He looked tired. There were worry lines between his brows and prominent wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "Child, please, sit." He motioned for Euth to take a seat.

Euth dragged a rocking chair over and slumped into it, crossing his arms over his chest. He rested his right foot on his left knee and watched the conversation unfold before him.

Chiron turned his head to look at him. "Euth, you mentioned that these symbols were of Norse descent?"

"Yep," he said, popping the p. He rocked himself with his foot.

"Hmmm..." Chiron scratched at his beard.

Percy looked lost, like he wasn't quite sure whether he believed or understood anything that was going on. "I don't... what?"

"Several years ago," Chiron said, "before your first arrival here at camp, Percy, there was a negotiation with another camp, of sorts, up north. In Maine, I believe. Our first encounter with them was during a quest, where three demigods were asked by Harmonia herself to retrieve a necklace that was stolen from her. Of course, they returned and fulfilled their given prophecy, however, they did not come back unscathed." Chiron seemed physically distraught. He took in a breath from his nose and exhaled, following what he'd been telling. "As it had been, they had to be admitted to the infirmary for their injuries."

Euth went through a long list of injuries the three demigods had recieved once they came back: abdominal lacerations, broken ribs, sprained ankles, dislocated shoulders, and numerous contusions all over their bodies.

"But those weren't the worst of it." Euth sat himself upright, crossing his legs. "One of them, they had their finger cut off, right at the second digit. Another, three of their fingernails had been completely ripped off. And the other had a few of their teeth pulled out—"

"I think," Chiron interjected, placing a freckled hand on Euth's knee, "that is enough. Thank you, Euth."

What was left of his burrito, Percy could practically envision it as spilled intestines or chunks of human remains. The gory detail Euth told them had his stomach wrenching uncomfortably. Annabeth's glass of water began to ripple in reverse.

"What about the carvings on their backs?" Annabeth asked suddenly, keenly, like she was too enthralled to dismiss anything.

Chiron patted Euth's knee and pulled it back to his lap. "Yes, well, according to a few victims of these lacerations themselves, those carvings depicted a bird. An eagle, to be specific. And, ah, if I'm not mistaken, it was the step-one of an execution ritual."

"A  _ Norse  _ execution ritual, might I add," Euth piped in.

A crease formed between Annabeth's brows. She was clearly displeased about something. " _ What _ ?" The storm in her eyes razed. "How did we  _ ever _ come to terms with them?"

_ Them _ , Percy assumed, was the strange camp in Maine. He had never thought that there would be another, potential, demigod training facility so close to Camp Half-Blood. Well, he had, with the exception of the Egyptian magicians who were just next door in Brooklyn, but nothing as brutal or unmerciful as he'd heard.

"There would have been more bloodshed if we hadn't come to terms with them." Chiron took a sip of his Chamomile tea, but it didn't seem to calm his nerves. "Besides, they were the first to broach a peace treaty. The first time they broke it, it was with the two campers at the creek."

"And the second time?" Percy pressed, curious now.  _ Very _ curious.

"The second time they broke the treaty, although it is still up for question, was last night, when three demigods left camp to pursue any monsters that may have escaped through the Doors of Death. They left last Sunday and haven't returned."

"They've been gone a  _ week _ ?"

"Give or take a few days," Euth added. He wasn't helping.

Annabeth massaged her temples. "Then what do we do? What do you  _ propose _ we do?"

"Confront them would be the only reasonable way at the moment," Chiron said.

There was a sigh.

"If I had known  _ you _ would be confronting  _ us _ , I wouldn't have bothered to come. But since I'm  _ here _ , why not start now?"

With a noticeable slouch in his posture, a young man walked toward the table, his hands shoved into the back pockets of his dark jeans. He wore a collared black jacket, unzipped and open, a navy hoodie underneath. He had chin-length dark brown hair and an olive tan. He had glowing green eyes.  _ Glowing _ , because they were such a vibrant shade, too light to be considered normal.

Everyone neither moved nor spoke a word, mainly because of his sudden appearance the newcomer was an unknown attendee with a seemingly roguish face.

Chiron gave the boy a knowing look. "And who might you be, boy?"

He quirked an eyebrow and glanced at every given face present. "It was my personal choice to show myself." He looked to Chiron, his eyes fierce. "My name is Vincent Walsh. I'm here to talk about your missing children."


	5. Closure

**Chiron eyed Vincent with doubtful scrutiny,** his eyebrows drawn to form a crease between them. "I don't believe we've officially met." He tried for a friendly tone.

  
Vincent pulled a tight smile. "Seems not." His eyes flickered to the three demigods who sat in subsidiary accompaniment, then to Chiron again. "Can I have a word with you? In private?"

  
Chiron regarded him for a moment, then bowed his head and wheeled himself to back up so he could get around the edge of the table. "I suppose. Let's talk inside."

  
"Splendid," Vincent crooned. He turned on his heel and headed over to the front door of the Big House.

  
"Chiron," Annabeth said, as she watched Vincent walk off, "who was that? Do you know him?"

  
"I don't," he said. "Percy, Annabeth, Euth, could the three of you please refrain from interrupting our conversation, and to inform the campers to do so as well? Also, will one of you tell Will that he'll be teaching archery to the campers this evening?"

  
The three of them agreed to Chiron's terms. They watched as he wheeled himself over to where Vincent was propping open the screen door with his foot with all the etiquette of a gentleman. The two exchanged light words of gratitude before they entered.

  
Chiron led Vincent into the living room. The small space was furnished with a few leather couches that squared around the stone fireplace. Mounted above the mantel was a stuffed head of a spotted feline. Vincent observed the oddity with curiosity. His hands were behind his back, fingers loosely entwined, like a browsing inspector of genuine interest.

  
"A... leopard?" Vincent looked to Chiron. "A cheetah."

  
"You guessed right the first time."

  
"Is it alive?" he asked.

  
"Quite." Chiron parked his wheelchair by the fireplace and held out his hands to the cackling flames, the heat doing wonders to his spotted hands. "His name is Seymour, if it even matters to you. If we speak quietly, we should be able to avoid waking him."

  
Vincent had a quizzical look in his eye, almost as if he was having a difficult time understanding how something with no functional body could ultimately be living.

  
"This must be strange for you," Chiron said. "Our worlds are relatively diverse from each other."

  
"On the contrary, Chiron," Vincent said, "you aren't the only one with a severed head for a pet." He reached his hand up, and although just out of reach from Seymour's muzzle, he could still feel the warm breath it exhaled despite not having lungs.

  
"So I've heard."

  
"So you've heard..." Vincent pocketed his hand.

  
Chiron sighed. "I presume that you mean well, Mister Walsh, but your claims toward my campers are resolute. I won't take anymore cautions. Now, please, have a seat."

  
Vincent hummed. He turned on his heels and sat down on the closest edge of the couch, crossing a leg over the other. There was a small glass bowl of what looked to mainly just be butterscotch candies. Vincent plucked one out, pulled at its twisted ends to unwrap it, and popped it in his mouth.  
He swiveled the candy in his mouth before biting down on it, crushing it, and swallowed. He wasn't one to savor. There was a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, something that wasn't common with butterscotch.

  
"These aren't regular candies," he said, stuffing the candy wrapper into his coat pocket.

  
Chiron looked to the bowl. "No," he agreed. "It's a new approach. I'm sure you're familiar with the divine drink of the Olympian gods."

  
"Nectar." Vincent nodded and took a few candies, pocketing them.

  
"With a combined effort from a few of the campers," Chiron said, "we were able to convert it into a more appetizing form for the younger children that come."

  
"Clever. Everyone loves candy."

  
"It seems as much."

  
Vincent crossed his arms over his chest and slouched a little into the couch. "That look," he said. "It looks as if you're under siege."

  
"I might as well be." Chiron clasped his hands in his lap. "Two of my campers met their untimely demise a few months back and now, currently, three are missing. You said you wanted to speak to me about them. Will any of it be good news?"

  
"Don't know." Vincent sat forward suddenly. He uncrossed his legs and had his elbows perched on his knees. "But let's talk about that in private, yeah?"

  
"Aren't we already--"

  
Vincent reached out and placed a hand on Chiron's shoulder. Between the moment it took either of them to blink, they weren't sitting in the living room of the Big House anymore. Rather, they were standing on a ridge that overlooked a valley.

  
It was spread out beneath them and stopped at a sort of bay where the shoreline caved in out yonder. Three separate bodies of water rippled at the foot of the ridge's slope from the heavy wind that warded against them, with an isolated rock hill that rose abruptly from the gentle slope of the grassy terrain on their right. To their left were more ridges that dipped into the valley, and together, created a kind of bowl-like landform.

  
Vincent shivered. He zipped up his jacket and put on the hood from the hoodie he wore underneath. Beside him, Chiron was out of his wheelchair and, with the additional height the horse-half of himself seemed to put on, he loomed over him.

  
Vincent rubbed his hands together and breathed on them. He should have just stayed back where it was warm, but he needed to be certain no one was listening in on their conversation. The Greek campers excluded, he was more concerned with the birds in the area, namely the ravens.

  
"Where..." Chiron began to say. He had the same look Vincent had when he'd first laid eyes on the view here: awestruck. "Where have you taken me? This is nowhere close to New York."

  
"You're right," he said, and breathed on his hands again, cupping them around his mouth. "Welcome to Scotland."

  
"Scotland." Chiron sounded unsure.

  
"Yeah," Vincent said, as if he was stating the obvious. "To be more specific, we're in the land where the Vikings had their last stand: _Blar a' Bhuailte_."

  
"But we are in Scotland, in the United Kingdom?"

  
Vincent huffed. "Yes."

  
"And your explanation as why you've brought me here?" Chiron had on a look of uncertainty, as if he wasn't sure whether he was making a precarious decision by listening to Vincent's side of the story.

  
Vincent pulled his hands inside of his sleeves and shoved them in his pockets. He had a very low tolerance for the cold and was already regretting not staying back where it was warm.

  
"The birds," he said. Chiron raised an eyebrow. "Ravens. Look, I'm not going to go into depth about it, but our camp uses ravens as a means of communication. They're like our eyes and our ears. That's how we found those two demigods by that creek and the three in the mountains."

  
"Two demigods by the creek and three in the mountains?"

  
Vincent realized his mistake. He sniffled and tried to play it through. "Uh, yes. They report anything suspicious, like the those two and the three who were within our territory. I don't understand why you wouldn't think anything else of what happened."

  
"They left camp a week ago," Chiron said. "I haven't heard a word from them within the time that they were gone."

  
"Right, well, two out of three of them are missing..." Vincent bobbed his head left and right. "... permanently."

  
"Missing permanently." The words seemed to leave Chiron in a foul mood. Anything missing permanently only meant one thing.

  
"Dead," Vincent said bluntly.

  
Chiron closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose. When he opened them, he exhaled. His expression was guarded and steely, like he was on the verge of anger but had to keep reminding himself to stay calm.

  
"I would appreciate it if you could retrieve their bodies," he said. "For their burial rights."

  
"Unless you can pick out whose ashes are whose, I wouldn't count on it." Chiron didn't speak. "Hey, they were originally going to be burnt with the hogs back at camp. I call that a mercy killing. Besides, they aren't all dead. We still have one, you know, alive."

  
Chiron raised his chin and in a voice that was steely calm said, "I propose you compromise a negotiation with whomever is in charge as to bringing them home."

  
"Like I haven't already tried?" Vincent looked out over the valley for a moment before looking back up to Chiron, scratching the side of his neck. "Look, security is tight at camp, okay? If I could, I would. I want nothing more than to stop all of this and renew our treaty, but I don't have a say."

  
"You always have a say."

  
"A son of Loki never has a say."

  
"Is this what you came to talk to me about?" Chiron looked crestfallen. "Is this how you intend I break the news to the campers, with more bad news? They deserve better."

  
"Everyone deserves better, one way or another." Vincent sighed and hunched up his shoulders. "Look, for one reason or another, we've been targeting your camp. I thought it was because of the whole Romans-and-Greeks-have-an-alliance thing, but that could only be a cover-up."

  
"A cover-up." Chiron narrowed his eyes. "Of what kind?"

  
Vincent opened his mouth, then closed it. It had been at the front of his thoughts, but now that he thought about it, he couldn't acquire the exact memory as to what he was going to say. He knew it had something to do with his camp, but everything else was fuzzy.

  
He opened his mouth again, said something along the lines of, "Ahhh," and then closed it.

  
Chiron looked to be running out of patience. He pawed at the ground with his front hooves, something Vincent recognized as an action horses often did when feeling impatient or frustrated. But he saw that he had a front leg lifted, which was, by all means, an imminent threat.

  
"A cover-up for... something!"

  
He was so frustrated in himself for not remembering what he was going to tell Chiron that he hadn't realized that he'd raised his voice. Though, at the same time as when he'd raised his voice, an electric bang sounded overhead, which had Vincent's ears popping and the air smelling of ozone. And at the same time as when he'd raised his voice and when the electric bang sounded overhead, Chiron had been so startled as to kick Vincent in the stomach.

  
Vincent staggered backwards as the scenery melted away in a pixilated mess of earthy browns and greens, where the sky shook and broke to shambles, and the valley below caved in on itself into a vast of nothingness. Chiron and he were where they had been before, with Vincent sitting at the edge of the couch, a hand placed on Chiron's shoulder who sat in his wheelchair in front of him.

  
Vincent sat back, his hand slipping from Chiron's shoulder. He felt light-headed. He hadn't expected anything to go awry during his little illusional mimicry, and he sure as hell didn't expect there to be physical pain where Chiron had kicked him.

  
He rubbed his stomach, expecting himself to look like he had the world's worst stomach ache.

  
Chiron sat up straight and alert, confused for a moment as he looked around. "I hope that wasn't your idea of a talk. Would you mind clarifying to me exactly what that was?"

  
Vincent closed his eyes, trying to inwardly catch his breath. He said, "A memory. I showed you exactly what I experienced when I visited there."

  
"So we were never actually in Scotland."

  
"Yes and no."

  
Chiron narrowed his eyes. "Was it for the birds?" He thought he sounded silly for talking about such a thing. "You mentioned you needed to get away from them?"

  
"When it comes to the conscious," he said and furrowed his eyebrows, "you can't physically track it. I did us both a favor."

  
"Chiron!"

  
Someone barged into the living room, their footing heavy against the wooden floorboards. They were probably wearing shoes. Vincent screwed his mouth up at the thought.

  
"Are you alri—whoa."

  
"Is he dead? He looks dead."

  
"He looks unwell, not dead, Euth."

  
Vincent squinted his eyes open and found the three other demigods he saw earlier on the porch standing in the living room by the stair case. " _Drit og dra_ ," he said.  
The shorter of the three with the mismatched eyes looked taken aback, like he took Vincent's vulgarity as a personal affront.

  
"I can assure you, Euth," Chiron said, "that he is, in fact, alive. A bit under the weather, but otherwise well."

  
Percy looked on edge. "Did something happen?"

  
"I'm not sure, but the three of you look startled."

  
"Thunderclouds started forming above the Big House," Annabeth said. "And, like, all these birds started swarming the roof. Crows. Ravens, maybe?"

  
Chiron moved to stand up and extracted his lower half out of the false compartment of the seat of his wheelchair. He clomped his hooves on the floor to stretch his legs, his tail swooshing back and forth.

  
He looked at Vincent expectantly, but the son of Loki had nothing to share.

  
"Is he sleeping?" Percy asked, then scoffed. "I want what he's having."

  
Annabeth nudged him in the arm and told him to quit it.

  
Chiron sighed. "Euth, please take him to the infirmary. Have someone inform me when he awakes, will you?"

  
"Sure, but..."

  
He gave him a pointed look. With a begrudged affirmation, Euth lifted Vincent onto his shoulders and carried him to the infirmary, which seemed to be the easiest way besides dragging him all the way there.

  
Chiron abstained from answering any questions Annabeth or Percy may have had and excused himself to his office.

 

 

 

That night, instead of gathering around the campfire to sing songs like usual, what campers there were, gathered for the burning of the burial shrouds of those who were thought to be M.I.A. Because the height and the color of the flames depended on the general mood of the campers, the campfire burned low and black in its pit.

  
Chiron stood beside four campers who each held up their fellow cabin-mate's burial shroud. He gave an honorary oration in regards to the four demigods who had their lives taken so soon from them, extolling the deeds of the brave.

  
When all was said and done, their shrouds were draped over the flames of the campfire. Those who could, stayed. Those who couldn't, discretely excused themselves to their respective cabin and clocked in for the night.

  
Amanda Hayes: undetermined; 13 years.

  
Pascal Gage: undetermined; 14 years.

  
Anthony Wickham: child of Ares; 15 years.

  
Mira Ferro: daughter of Peitharchia; 17 years.


End file.
